Standing Firm

It is important to remember that as Christians that our citizenship is in another Kingdom.  Our lives are to be spent in allegiance to another King.I have been musing the last few months of how much our culture is changing and I have been some what alarmed to see many Christians cave into the pressure to conform to present culture.  Biblical norms are being abandoned and there is a growing indifference to what the Bible teaches.  Being a Christian is more than being nice people, at its heart is an allegiance to Jesus, to embrace His values and His word.  Many will embrace God's word when it speaks of love and grace, yet when it comes to something that has a requirement of them or a commandment they feel uncomfortable with they discount it.  We can't escape what the Bible says is wrong, it is wrong.  When the Bible is at odds with current culture we must stand firm.  When the Bible points us to being loyal to Him and His Church we must do it.  James in his epsitle writes...

"Therefore put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls. But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing."   (James 1:21-25  ESV) 

Jim Durkin who led an amazing movement during the Jesus People movement spoke of his own experience when he turned away from accepting the whole counsel of the Bible.  His church in shambles, his marriage broken, alone in a cabin with his life a mess he cried out to God, "why has all this happened to me?"  God spoke to him and said, "you have added three words to My words, you say "the Bible says, 'but we know...',  from now on accept and do what My word says and in the dong of it you will come to understand it.  That encounter changed Jim's life, and as he taught this truth it changed the lives of thousands of young people. Some will say I am being simplistic yet I know of no other way to live.  We are comanded to love our neighbor, lets do it.  We are to care for the broken hearted, lets do it.  We are to call sin for what it is, and offence to God, yet speak of mercy and forgiveness.  Lets walk in the fear of the Lord, and yet be confident in our standing with Him.  Lets be the 
the be ambassadors for Christ that we are called to be.